adapted by Phillis Gershator & illustrated by Theresa Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998
After Mosquito proposes in turn to Ear, Arm, and Leg, and is turned down for being too small and weak to last, she angrily turns on them: “I’ll bite zzzng-zzzng/deep, deep zzzng-zzzng/in your sleep zzzng-zzzng.” Gershator (Sweet, Sweet Fig Banana, 1996, etc.) expands a story found in a language textbook, adding sound effects and giving Mosquito an appreciative mate in the end—a male mosquito: “You please me a lot,” he says, “you’re big and strong, and I like your music too.” Nonetheless, conjugal bliss doesn’t stop Mosquito from passing her biting ways on to her children. Smith illustrates this alternative to Verna Aardema’s classic Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears (1975) with close-ups of striped Mosquito, bristling with pointed extremities, against backgrounds of saturated blues and greens. A simple, clever story that will not only be new to young readers, but in this lively recasting lends itself equally well to reading alone or out loud. (Picture book/folklore. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-531-09523-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998
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by Doreen Cronin & illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2005
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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by Craig Smith ; illustrated by Katz Cowley ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2010
Hee haw.
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The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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